Eating bitterness: the past and the pattern -- Speaking bitterness: doing research in the People's Republic of China -- Women workers in the cities -- Women workers in the countryside -- Being and becoming a proper Chinese woman -- Cooked rice: marriage in new China -- The setting of Chinese women's lives: family organization -- Sharing a stove: urban domestic relations -- Sharing a stove: rural domestic relations -- The birth limitation program: family vs. state -- The other revolution